Beginning at the End

On this the final day of January, I planned to begin again posting about knitting. In keeping with my "new" ways at looking at life, though, I realized that before I jumped right in with knitting project pictures and commentary, I had some serious organizing to do. Back on January 1, when the idea was to make resolutions for the new year, I decided that by each Monday of the first few months I would complete a cleaning project (that gave me a week to finish.) So far, my closet, bureau, bathroom, and one corner of my bedroom are relatively clear. I believe, however, that the other 2 corners are going to take more than two Mondays!

It's time to reorganize yarn into bins, put copies of free online patterns into sleeves and the appropriate notebook, and gather errant needles. The pile of uncovered UFO's is awesome. Last year, pre-Ravelry, I had created a spreadsheet for all my yarn (including ancient acrylic from the 70's and 80's.)It lists the manufacturer, name, color, yardage, suggested gauge/needle size, and has a column for the finished project. I added up the yardage, divided by 1760, and came up with over 21 miles of yarn...

The other thing I have done is reorganize my pictures on my computer. I now have a file dedicated to photos that eventually will end up in the blog and on Ravelry.

In the meantime, I continue to work on a few projects to keep my sanity.

Finally, since I work every weekend at the library, I do not spend many Saturday afternoons at home. Today, I was treated to this on my wall:

Thanks, God! I needed that!!

A Puzzlement

Fourteen months of Blog Silence...

So just how do I begin again? If the life lesson I learned last week is any indication, it's time to rethink before I redo.

So how did I lean that?

Years and years ago, Mom and Aunt Emmy tried to outdo each other in sending jigsaw puzzles to rattle the brain. Thousands of pieces, holding out a piece, adding a piece, covering the picture on the top...they were relentless! I can picture Mom in her chair with the card table in her lap (she would fold down the front two legs so the table would rest on the arms of her chair.) All the edge pieces would be culled out, then painstakingly put together to form the frame of whatever picture was to emerge. Sometimes a few inner pieces, if colors were consistent, would be put together, then put aside until their place in the Big Picture could be determined. That is how I leaned puzzle doing.

S0, that is how I did puzzles during the winter of 2003 after my Mom died and my husband left. I found dozens of puzzles in a closet at Mom's house, and putting them together soothed those aching places in my heart and soul. I was putting my life back together, too.

So, fast forward to 2009. Life as I had known it had broken apart again, and though I kept trying to put it together, I was getting frustrated. Out of the blue, a friend sent me a zip lock bag full of puzzle pieces.

So, now it was back to puzzle therapy. But wait. It wasn't working. Try as I might, the edge pieces all looked alike and I was getting nowhere. I was frustrated. I started looking at the other pieces, and was able to put together some purple here, some writing there, some round things beside some weird lines. Then all the sub-sets started to fit together. Then I realized I was doing the puzzle from the inside out! Enlightenment!

So, what have I learned? There's more than one way to think. Of course I know that, but sometimes I just need to be reminded of that in a different way. The Parable of the Puzzle. Our lives are made up of many pieces. All the pieces will fit together eventually. Some look like they fit together but they really don't...but they do fit with another piece. Sometimes pieces go together quickly, sometime we can spend hours looking for the "right" piece that goes next to the other. When we find it, it is usually an "aha"moment- the piece was in front of us the whole time. Sometimes we do not even know what the Finished Puzzle will look like. Sometimes that is even more exciting, as we see the full image come together. There's more than one way to put together a puzzle. There's more than one way to put together a life. I need to be reminded to think outside the proverbial box. I do not know exactly what the picture of my life will look like, but I do know that God does.

So, to begin again, I will begin again. I have no particular plan. I have been knitting during these past 14 months, and I will be posting about old projects as well as new ones. Some of the pieces of my life need to express themselves in the written word. Some of the pieces are knit together. One or two pieces really do like photography, but they are not well-developed (pun intended!) Some pieces might like to share bit about books I am reading.

For the past year or so I have been signing all my correspondence with "peace- " now I realize the delightful irony of "piece!"